Misunderstood
by landshift
Summary: Who Can Truly Understand Speciesisum? A Story Of A Mutant Who Overcomes Ignorance & Helps Others Do The Same… OK, So I Suck At Summaries But It's Good, I Swear! Lots Of OC's And Eventually OCxKurt Wagner. Please Review!
1. Prologue

Misunderstood

Prologue

Disclaimer: **I, Sadly, Do Not Own The Mutant Super Hero Idea, X-Men, Or Any Other Aspect Of The 616 Universe. As Much As I'd Like To, I Don't. I Guess I'll Just Have To Come To Terms With The Fact.**

Summary: **Who Can Truly Understand Speciesisum? A Story Of A Mutant Who Overcomes Ignorance & Helps Others Do The Same… OK, So I Suck At Summaries But It's Good, I Swear! Lots Of OC's And Eventually OCxKurt Wagner. Please Review! I Beg Of You!**

**This Is Just The Prologue, The Rest Of The Story Is TOTALY Different!!! Also This Is Going To Be A Really, Really Long Story. It May Seem At First As Though It Belongs In The T.V. Shows Category Under X-Men: Evolution And Not Comics Under Just X-Men But Even If It Has The Whole "Everyone's In High School" And "They All Still Go To A Regular School" I Swear This Still Goes So Beyond Just That Show With Stuff From Wolverine And The X-Men, And The X-Men Movies, And The Comics, And Tons Of Stuff Just Out Of My Imagination So I Just Put It Under Comics Since I Figure Fans Of Any Version Of X-Men Would Check Out The Stuff Under Comics As Well As Whatever Their Favorite Version Is.**

It was midwinter and a girl of about nine was sitting at the window of her family's average suburban home looking out at their snow covered suburban lawn. Her posture exuded boredom, with her cheek scrunched up in her hand and her short brown hair falling in front of her face. She occupied herself for a moment with blowing it away but then just tucked it behind one ear and resumed staring out the window, fidgeting by curling and un-curling her toes. She was bored because her older brother was being no fun. He had been no fun ever since the weather had gotten cold. As soon as the temperature had dropped he'd been acting lethargic and sleeping all the time and not been any fun at all. She sighed onto the window, leaving a big misty circle in front of her face. She traced a frowny face in it with her finger and sighed again, misting the face over. Suddenly there was a "thump, thump" down the stairs behind her and she turned to see her brother careening down the stairs in nothing but his pajama bottoms. He had started putting on heirs ever since he had turned thirteen that fall and she hoped he wasn't going to start walking around without a shirt on now too. Still, she stood up hopefully, this was the most wakeful she had seen him all winter; perhaps he was going to stop being such a lazy mope and actually play with her.

He came skidding to a stop in front of her and she smiled, but then frowned again when he shoved his hands in her face, wiggling his fingers and exclaiming, "Ellie, look! Look! Look!" She tried to shove him away and he stepped back, still brandishing his fingers at her.

"Hold still would you, I can't see." She said, grabbing his wrists to stop him waving them around

"Look!" he insisted, keeping still at last, and she did look, her eyes widening in amazement. No longer were there grubby little boy fingernails at the end of his fingers, but sharp black claws instead. Her mouth fell open and her face stuck in a dumbfounded expression. "See? Claws! And look!" he said, pulling his hands out of her grip and pointing at his face and then turning around to show her his back "Scales!!" and indeed they were, the grew, apparently, all over his body in thin, olive-green, tiger stripe patches.

"Woah!" Ellie gasped, "You're like, lizard boy!"

"I know! Right? I'm gona' go show mom and dad!" he said and he ran off towards the kitchen. Ellie ran after him and stood behind him as he pounced on their father who was groggily drinking coffee in his morning bathrobe. He quickly perked up, however; once his son showed him his nails and scales.

"This is incredible, Eric! I've never seen a mutation quite like this before" he said, running his fingers along Eric's arm and feeling where skin became scales then became skin again. Eric Beamed and so did Ellie. Their father was a geneticist and knew all about DNA and mutations, though; they weren't strictly his line of work. Just then their mother walked in wearing her nightgown and holding a cup of coffee.

"What's going on?" she asked her husband.

"It appears as though Eric has developed a mutation." He answered her without taking his eyes off of Eric. Eric turned his head and grinned at his mother, revealing a mouth full of sharp pointed teeth. Their mother stood there, stunned, coffee cup frozen halfway to her face and her eyes locked on her son's teeth.

She lowered her coffee cup slowly and, turning to her husband, quietly asked, "What did you say?"

For the first time her husband looked up and saw the look of horror on his wife's face, he stood. "I said; it seems that our son is a mutant."

His wife glared at him and said angrily "Eric, Elinore! Go upstairs to your rooms!" Eric was no longer smiling and Ellie glared at her mother, she hated being called Elinore. Eric, sensing danger, began to scamper out of the kitchen but Elli stood stubbornly, preparing to reiterate to her mother the fact that she didn't like being called Elinore and that she preferred the name Ellie.

Her father stopped her though. He patted her on the shoulder and whispered to her "Go on Ellie, make sure Eric Bundles up nice and warm, he might even be cold blooded now!" She looked up at him and he smiled tiredly back at her until she had scampered upstairs after her brother.

After they went upstairs much passionate but suppressed arguing ensued downstairs between their mother and father. As it turned out, their father was wholly pro-mutant, while their mother was passionately against mutants, a subject that apparently had never come up between the two of them.

This first morning of suppressed arguing, during which Eric discovered that he could lift Ellie over his head with one hand, climb walls and had begun to grow a tail, was followed by an afternoon of not so suppressed arguing. After a few hours had passed Eric and Ellie quietly went to the top of the stairs to listen, unseen, to their parent's argument. After about a minute, Eric felt it his big brotherly duty to shield Ellie from their parent's anger as well as their occasional foul language by locking her in the upstairs bathroom, a simple task now that he could lift her over his head with one hand. She resisted at first but soon stopped and fell into a sulk sitting on the floor with her arms crossed and her back to the door, plotting plans of revenge; perhaps she could overpower him if she turned off all the heat in the house. Meanwhile; Eric had gone back to the top of the stairs and was listening intently to his parent's arguing. He became more and more shocked and horrified as he heard snips of his mother speaking hatefully about mutants, about him. He grew angry, how could she say such things? How could his mother, who had only last night kissed him and told him sweet dreams, be talking about him, about what he was, with such anger and resentment? How could anyone do that? Disgustedly, he got up to go get Ellie and take her to their room, but not before hearing the word "divorce," shouted from downstairs.

Their mother left that night. Eric locked Ellie and himself in their room while she came upstairs and packed. Ellie couldn't get him to tell her anything no matter how much she yelled or battered at him, he didn't talk, he didn't move; he just sat on his bed enshrouded in a black mood. Eventually, she gave up and got into bead, not sleeping, lying there sad and confused. Her parents argued often enough, some times worse than others, and it always made her sad, but they had never argued for so long before, she couldn't even get the gist of what they were arguing about. It seemed to be about Eric and his new superpowers but that didn't make sense to her either, she thought they were great! She wanted superpowers too! But apparently there was something wrong with that, she just didn't understand. She felt a painful lump come into her throat and bit her lip as tears welled up in her eyes. She just wanted everyone to be happy again! She curled into a ball facing the wall and a few repressed gulping sobs escaped her throat. A moment later, she felt the bed sag as her brother sat down next to her cocooned form. He patted her on the shoulder awkwardly and then started stroking her arm.

"It's alright," he murmured absently "everything'll be okay." He repeated that and a bunch of other similarly meaningless words and phrases too but it was soothing and after a bit she finally fell asleep. When Ellie woke up Eric was asleep in a beanbag chair right next to her bed and their mother was gone. She tiptoed downstairs and went to the kitchen where, to her surprise, she found her father sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. He looked up when he heard her come in. He didn't look like he had slept at all. His thin hair stood up in a spiky mess from running his fingers through it and his gaze was unfocused.

"Where's mommy?" Ellie asked quietly. Her father held out his arm and motioned with his hand for her to come to him. She pattered across the cold floor and leaned on his knee. He smiled at her weakly and tucked a puff of bead-head behind her ear. Suddenly he looked past her and she turned to see Eric standing in the doorway. He looked upset, his expression angry. Their father beckoned to him too and he came and stood at the far side of the square table. Satisfied by this, their father sighed and turned back to Ellie.

He smiled tiredly again and stroked her hair as he said, "I'm afraid mommy's a bit upset right now. Eric's turning out to be a mutant was a bit of a shock for her," he looked down at the table "so she's gone to stay somewhere nearby to sort things out." He finished kind of lamely.

"Why'd she have to go away to do that?" asked Eric, he sounded skeptical.

"Well," said their father, not looking at Eric, "Mommy and daddy are having a hard time agreeing on something kind of important so she's gone away somewhere quiet to try and figure out an arrangement that will work out for all of us" he ruffled Ellie's hair again. "Don't worry you'll still see her lots."

Eric was still frowning as he silently walked away to get some things for making toast

It was decided that Eric and Ellie would start being home schooled by there father, and excellent and willing teacher. Neither minded since both were new at their current school and had no close friends. After about a month their parents' divorce was successfully filed and carried out. There was a question about Elaine's custody because her mother wanted Elaine to live with her. Their father; however, managed to convince the judge to leave her in his custody due to the fact that Elaine could also someday develop a mutation. She still visited her mother often, she had moved, eventually, in with her sister a half an hour's drive away and her father would take her there and pick her up. Eric came too, at first, but he never left the car when they got to their aunt's and eventually he stopped coming altogether.

**Yay! Prologue Over! Now For The **_**Meat **_**Of The Story! I Swear The Rest Of It Will Be A Lot More Interesting, I Promise!!! Reviews Are MEGA Hearted So Please Review!!!**


	2. Chapter 1: Changes For Better Or Worse

Misunderstood

Chapter 1: In Which There Are Changes, For Better Or Worse.

Disclaimer:**I Still Don't Own Anything To Do With The 616 Universe. I Would If I Could But I Can't So I Don't. *EDIT Oh, And Suzuki Motorcycles Belong To Suzuki... I Guess =P /EDIT***

**Oh, Look! There's A Time Jump **_**And**_** I Changed Perspective From 3rd Person To 1st Person! I Told You That The Rest Of The Story Would Be Totally Different From The Prologue. Hopefully This Story Will Progressively Get At Least A Little Bit More Interesting As It Goes On, Hopefully…**

Five Years Later:

It was summer and a fourteen-year-old was slumped at the window of her family's seemingly average suburban home looking out at their browning suburban lawn.

That's me, actually, sitting there at the window waiting. I was waiting for my brother to get home. He's been gone since May, out visiting colleges in places like Florida, Texas, even Hawaii, anywhere hot. He hadn't actually been planning on coming home for another month, 'til September, to be exact but something came up. Namely, our mother brought back my custody case. She's brought it back because I am now fourteen and a half, well into the whole awful puberty business, and still not at all a mutant. Not a single jean out of place, unfortunately. Now our mother is planning on moving up to Maine and she wants me to come and live with her. I don't really know what to think of that, I mean I like my mom a lot, I mean she is my _Mom_ after all and, admittedly, I actually really like the idea of living up there in New England. I've seen pictures and stuff and it looks really gorgeous, like a place where one of my favorite fantasy books might take place. Besides, it's not like I'd never get to come back down and see "the guys" but still. I guess it's mostly the way Eric feels about our mom that's giving me all these second thoughts. I straightened up as a silver car turned onto the street, but wilted again when I saw it wasn't a convertible. I sighed, wiping some perspiration from my forehead and tightening up my short ponytail. _Eric will be perky today, _I thought wryly.

"Elaine!" My dad's voice with its fading English accent called to me from the Kitchen, "Feed your cat!"

"Alright!" I shouted back automatically, rolling out of the window seat and scrambling to my feet. I went into the kitchen where my dad was sitting at his computer working. Eric and I had been pretty lucky that dad could work from home over his computer or else he probably never would have been able to home school us. I unconsciously pulled out a can of cat food and shook it onto a paper plate. As soon as she heard the can open Tally, my slightly overweight tuxedo cat with an exceptionally fluffy tail, began mewing relentlessly, jumping up onto the counter and nearly knocking the food out of my hand, head butting my elbow with her head. I poured the food out, throwing away the empty can and ran back to the window. A silver convertible was parked in the driveway and someone was opening the front door. How typical that I'd been sitting at the window forever and the second I left he would show up. I leaped towards the entryway shouting "Eric!" and jumped straight into my big brothers arms. He hugged me hard and smiled, revealing rows of sharp pointed teeth. His tail, now as long as he was tall and powerful enough to lift three full-grown men off the ground, was curled carefully around his feet and his yellow slit-pupiled eyes looked down at me affectionately.

"Hey Ellie! How's summer been?" he put me back on my feet.

"Too hot!" I groaned, mock fainting "and too boring! The Whole neighborhood is on vacation in like, Zimbabwe and it's just not the same with out you around to throw me in the pond or take me out on your motorbike!" Eric had an awesome old Suzuki motorcycle that he would ride around on, mostly for fun, and he would take me with him every few nights when he was around. I actually knew a fair amount about motorcycles, including how to ride one, in theory any way; Eric had never let me behind the handlebars, even in a deserted parking lot.

"I'll take you for a ride tonight." He promised. He looked around, "Where's dad?"

"The kitchen, can I get the bike out then?" he nodded and I ran out to the garage. Eric's bike was big, dark orange, and powerful. Just then, however, it was hidden under a tarp held down by some cinderblocks behind a bunch of boxes in our garage, next to the silver Honda Odyssey van. _I am ever impressed at how quickly junk piles up in our garage_ I thought as I moved the boxes, hefted the cinderblocks off the tarp and tore it off of the bike with a flourish. I patted its long, slightly torn seat and smiled then went and rooted through some boxes until I found our helmets. I set them out on a workbench and reattached the visor to mine; it had an irritating tendency to pop off when I raised it.

I jogged back inside towards the kitchen but I stopped and hid myself on the stairs when I heard dad and Eric arguing.

"You can't just let her take her!" Eric sounded desperate and angry. "Elaine could still be a mutant! Sometimes it just takes a high stress situation for powers to manifest and then what would happen to Elaine?! Beth would probably just hand her over to the police!"

"Eric," my dad's voice was much calmer and more reasonable, "I know how you feel about your mother but Beth has changed. She wanted to make amends with you years ago but you wouldn't let her. She doesn't care if you're a mutant or Elaine either---"

"But she would still never be a mother to me! She may not me but she can't love me, and she would stop loving Elaine just the same way if she turned out to be a mutant! I won't let you just give her to someone who's affections are so changeable!"

"But Eric, your sister may never even become a mutant. The chances of her developing a mutation at this age are slim to none. Almost all mutations develop during ---"

At this point I, being my usual clumsy self, slipped while trying to lean out from the stairs to hear better and the ensuing thump alerted the guys to my presence. Eric turned to look into the hall and I tried my best to make it look like I had just come in from the garage.

"Did you get the bike ready?" he said, he looked worried, he defiantly suspected that I had been listening.

"Yeah, I got it out." I said, trying to sound cheerful. "It was behind a bunch of stuff, took a while to unearth it." Probably didn't need as much of an explanation but otherwise a pretty good lie. Still it killed me to lie to my brother; I'm actually a really honest person, I only lie when I'm scared and I usually fess up in the same breath.

"Alright, come give me a hand with my bags then, kay?" he said as he headed for the door.

"What?" I exclaimed, quickly almost forgetting the whole lying argument thing because my memory is just so great like that "why do you need my help?! You're like Superman!"

"Yeah," he said looking back "but I've only got three arms." He grinned and I reluctantly followed him to the car, grabbing his duffle bag and hefting it into the living room. Eric came in behind me with a suitcase in each arm and his tail wrapped around a laundry bin full of boxes and stuff.

"Showoff." I muttered.

"Jealous." Was his automatic, ingrained response. He fished around in the laundry basket and pulled out a generic grocery bag with "THANKYOU" written on it over and over again and handed it to me. "Here, got you a present" he said and went back to unpacking. I sat down on the couch and pulled out the contents of the bag; a jar full of shells and shark teeth from Hawaii, a small, partially de-spined cactus in a terracotta pot which I promptly poked myself with in about three different places from Texas, a stuffed animal alligator with some of the missing cactus spines stuck in it's snout from Florida, and a T-shirt that said Valley with some pretty lizard, sun, mountain patterns between the words that I suspected had the rest of the missing cactus spines hidden treacherously somewhere in the fabric.

"Wow! These are so great! Thank you soooo much!" I said sincerely, "it's too bad you had to come home right when you were going to Mexico, You could have brought me back a sombrero!"

"Yeah," he grunted, distracted "I was just going to get you a bunch of those "I went to 'blank' and all I got was this stupid T-shirt" T-shirts but they are surprisingly hard to find." I rolled my eyes as he smirked at his own joke.

"I'll go put this stuff up in my room." I said. I put everything but the cactus, which I decided to hold to prevent more spine loss on its part, back into the bag and stood up.

"Alright." He was frowning again when I turned to go upstairs. I went to my room and walked over to my window where I carefully set down the cactus, which I had decided to name Lou because I have a thing for naming inanimate objects like by computer, Fritz Razzled III, or my favorite jacket, Jerome. I fished out the alligator and checked it's tag to determine weather or not it needed me to name it too or if it came with it's own mass-produced title. Finding only instructions on how to wash it should it get dirty I decided that it was a alligator and its name was Apples. Cute, right? I turned to throw Apples onto my bed next to Thumper the rabbit and Pepper the elephant but instead threw her right into my brother's chest which I'm sure shocked the both of us (Apples an I, that is) dreadfully. Eric caught her deftly and placed her on my pillow.

"Jeze Eric! What'd you have to sneak up on me for all the time? Is it so hard to make a little noise when you walk or are you really in permanent stealth mode?!"

"Sorry" he said, he still wasn't smiling, "dad says dinner will be ready soon but I wanted to talk to you first."

"About mom?" He nodded "I still don't think that it would be so bad if I went to live with her, it's not like you couldn't still visit, mom would be really happy to have you."

"You were listening to dad and I, weren't you?" he said. I nodded honestly. "Listen," he became very serious, "you're old enough now that you can pick which parent you want to live with, and I know that you've always thought that mom is alright but she's not! She abandoned me, and you too, just because I turned out to be a mutant, she's so set in her ideas that she would leave you just because there is a chance that you might be a mutant too! Do you know what people like her do to us? We have no rights; we're nothing but animals to them. She would have me dragged away and locked up! They want us all shipped away somewhere, or under constant surveillance. They all just think we're monsters!"

"But I'm not a mutant!" I cried, I felt tears coming on; Eric really knew how to upset me.

"Still! How could you want to go and live with the same kind of woman who would desert a child just because it turned out a different religion than what she thought was right, or-or, a different race or gender!" he stuttered out the last bit and glared at me. I stared at my hands, still clutching the plastic bag, and said nothing. Eric stood swiftly and walked to the door, stopping with his back to me. When he spoke his words were cold. "You had better think about this long and hard, it's your future you're ruining. Oh, and no matter how happy Beth would be to see me, I would never, never come visit her." He walked downstairs without looking back. Quietly, I got up and put away the rest of my presents then went back to my bead and curled up against the pillows and stuffed animals. Eric's words were ripping me up, needling themselves deep into my brain and tearing me apart. I didn't know what to think any more. I sat there curled up in a ball, biting my lip to hold back tears and whimpering whenever a particularly bleak and awful thought surfaced in my mind. _Would she me if I was a mutant? Would she really treat me like a monster? Not love me any more? Oh god why, why, why? Why is everyone like this? why do they do these things, why, why?!_

_WHY CANT PEOPLE JUST UNDERSTAND EACHOTHER!?!?_

My body stiffened as my mental scream of sadness racked my body with waves of physical pain. As the intense emotions passed, however, the pain did not and I actually did scream in indignation as the pain became suddenly intense in my arms and legs. It felt like how I would imagine breaking a bone must feel, never having actually broken one myself, only all over, and my skin was ling like fire, like flaming cactus spines everywhere. My fingers dug at my hair, at my arms as Eric ran into my room, panic-stricken, followed by my dad who was shouting something but I couldn't understand. Eric grabbed me up into his arms like a baby but his touch hurt enormously and I lashed out at him with my claws because apparently I had claws now and something else and then, thank god, I passed out.

When I woke up I still felt like crap, obviously I had not passed out for long enough. In my opinion passing out should last until everything is totally better and I did not feel totally better, not even jokingly close. Some idiot had put three lead weights on my stomach, but then I realized that the first two were my arms and the third was someone else's hand. With an effort that should have won me a gold metal for perseverance and the admiration of weight lifters everywhere, I slid my arms off of my torso. After that I was about ready to call it a day, and retire permanently from the whole ove "conscious" thing but someone had other plans. I heard talking but none of it made any sense, and then someone with serious superhuman strength actually lifted my head which had to weigh like ten thousand tons, then I felt the claws on the hands against my scalp and realized it was Eric, which I guess made sense. Suddenly something cold and hard was pressed to my lips and then something cold and wet went in my mouth and down my chin, mostly down my chin, unfortunately. The water revived me a bit, especially the freezing cold stuff that went down my shirt, but I still felt tired and feverish.

"Elaine, are you alright?" I groaned, how the hell was I supposed to know, I'd been unconscious, hadn't they been paying attention while I was out?!?

I tried to say 'what happened?' and it came out a very quiet "wuaa hapnt?" which I thought was pretty good for a first try. The ensuing silence woke me up better than the cold water down my cleavage. I managed to open my eyes a bit and saw a painfully bright room and Eric and my dad sitting next to me looking at each other.

Finally my dad turned to me and said weakly "You were very upset about something… it happens sometimes. Very unusual but. Can be rather sudden. Does happen sometimes. Most unusual." I'm sure you can tell that my dad isn't exactly eloquent under pressure.

My brother also lacks a certain finesse "you're a mutant!" he blurted out, an uneasy smile on his face, like he was worried that I may not take the news well. I'm not sure what my brother considers "well" but if it's passing out again, then yes, I took the news very well.

**I've Got To Say, Writing In 1st Person Is Really Difficult For Me. I Kept Messing Up Tenses And Getting All Wordy With No Dialogue… But I Can Tell Myself How Much Of A Crappy Writer I Am All Day, I'd Much Rather You Did It, By Leaving Some Reviews!!! Please!!!! **

**Good Reviews Are Accepted Also But Only Skeptically.**


	3. Chapter 2: Things Get Taking Used To

Misunderstood

Chapter 2: In Which Things Get Some Taking Used To

Disclaimer:** I Seem To Need To Correct My Two Previous Disclaimers. I Continue To Not Own Anything To Do With Earth 616, But Expanding On That I Do Not Own Any Aspect Of The Known Marvel Multiverse Either (Though I Have Decided To Name My Little Portion Of The Multiverse Earth 1098).**

**I Recently Bought The Marvel Encyclopedia And Am Reading My Way Through It (Yes I Am Reading An Encyclopedia, Though It Is An Awesome Encyclopedia) This Has Both Expanded My Knowledge Of The Marvel Universe (Um, Multiverse…) And Helped Me Decide By What Guidelines I Will Write My Story. 1) All Characters Look The Same, Sound The Same, Act The Same, And Have The Same Past As They Do In The Comics (For Example, Wolverine Looks Like Hugh Jackman From The X-Men Movies Where He Plays Wolverine) 2) Timelines Can Go Jump Off A Cliff For All I Care About Them, Even If So-And-So Wasn't Even Born While What's-His-Name Was Alive, In My Story, They Can Still End Up Going To The Same Crazy Dance Party At That One Club And Wake Up The Next Morning In There Respective Homes Wearing Each other's Underwear (WITHOUT The Aid Of Time Travel!) 3) I Will Be Using A Bunch Of Stuff That Actually Happened In The Comics, Not Necessarily In Sequential Order, (See 2 Above) But I Will Also Be Making Up A Bunch Of Crap, And Stealing Ideas From The Movies And The Shows. So Yeah…**

When I woke up again I still felt pretty bad. Most of the general awful feeling from before had resolved itself into more recognizable discomforts. Most of my body felt badly sunburned, I was sick to my stomach, and I was starving. Never a happy combination, queasiness and hunger. Below the waist, however; the awfulness hadn't resolved itself yet, it just felt really weird. I groaned a bit and flexed my muscles experimentally. They were sore but manageably so. I opened my eyes to slits and widened them a bit when light didn't stream in and burn my poor retinas. It was late, or early, it wasn't light any more anyway. I looked around, I was in my bed, someone had changed me into my nightgown, and my dad was asleep in my desk chair. I closed my eyes again and took a deep, shaky breath, pulling the covers off myself; I felt claws on my fingers catch at the sheets. I waited one more moment, my heart clanging in my ribs, before I opened my eyes and looked at myself.

My following thought process went something like this.

_Black? No, purply-black. Feathers? Purply-black Feathers. Yes, claws. Tail!?!?! Oh hell, my legs! No, I mean my feet! I have animal legs! What the hell? Tail? I have a tail?! God, feathers everywhere! Are they everywhere? Oh god._

At this point I turned to get out of bed, open my closet, and look at myself in the mirror but I stopped myself, remembering my the whole leg situation. I looked down again and carefully touched the ends of my feet to the floor.

If you've ever seen a dog's back legs, or a cats, or a fox's, or wolf's, then you can imagine what my legs looked like. It's pretty muchly the same as a human's leg down to the ankle, just bent at the knee, but the feet are much longer and the animal only walks on the very ends. My feet were now about twice as long as they had been. The toes were a bit longer and more flexible and tipped with claws.

I gingerly put more weight on them, supporting myself on the bed. Slowly I slid to the floor in a crouching position, balancing on the end of my feet and my hands. I felt unsteady and flattened my feet to the ground, knees bent all the way. I carefully tried to stand up straight like this but a twanging pain pulled at my tendons and I quickly sat back down again swearing under my breath. I looked back at my dad sitting in my chair but he was still sleeping. Carefully I rocked forward until I was balancing on the balls of my feet again, toes spread wide for better balance. Using the headboard I pulled myself up and tried to find my center of gravity. I finally found it, knees bent, spine curved over like a hunchback, arms held slightly in front of me and feet spread. I experimentally took a step, still holding on to the bead. It wasn't unlike walking on tiptoe and I let go of the bed and stumbled forward a few steps, catching my closet's doorknob. I twisted it and jerked the door open quickly to stop it from squeaking, halting it before it slammed into the wall.

Staring at myself in the mirror I felt a mixture of shock and relief. My eyes were yellow, but my face was almost featherless, they started on my cheeks near my jaw line and covering the sides of my neck but my own skin still covered my face and went plunging in a pale pink line down my throat, disappearing past the neck of my nightdress. I touched my hair and found it to be made of feathers too, thin fine ones. I pulled the dress up over my head, please I rather you didn't start imagining too much about what that implies. My neck down to about my belly button was devoid of feathers and I had bald patches on the palms of my hands, the bottoms of my feet, under my arms, on the insides my elbows, and behind my knees but otherwise, my back, shoulders, arms, legs, the back of my hands and feet, were completely covered in small smooth feathers. They lay flat to my skin, almost like fur. I stroked my arm, doing it the wrong way made my skin sting like sunburn; my skin must have been tender underneath after sprouting all of them. They were all small and smooth except the ones on the end of my tail, which were longer and more fan-like, like a lion's brush. I experimented with my tail which had been curling and twitching while I wasn't paying attention, it was confusing at first, figuring out how to move it myself, but I started just flexing the muscles along my spine until I got to the base of my tail, then I just kept going. It was three feet long and really flexible, I could curl it around my wrist a couple of times.

Even though I was essentially wearing a feather onesie, I'm just not the kind of person who is comfortable with standing around without any clothes on, even in my own room. I quietly found a bra and a loose tank-top and put them on, but then was faced with a pair of quandaries; one, none of my pants or underwear had tail holes in them, and two, putting pants on would be extremely painful because even though my legs were the same length as before, they would pull my leg-feathers the wrong way when I put them on. So it looked like pair of jeans was out of the question, not to mention anything resembling stockings, tights, or leggings. Dejectedly, I realized my only alternative; skirts. I am not a skirt person, I'm not even a shorts person, for me it's pretty muchly been either blue jeans or black jeans, I did, however, own one skirt. It was gray and swooshy and skim-the-ground long, which worked out pretty well because once I put it on, you couldn't tell that my legs were weird.

I hobbled back over to the bed, it would take me a while before I got used to walking, and sat down. Once I thought about it, I realized that I had taken the whole thing very well, or maybe I was just in shock… still, I like to think I'm the kind of person who takes life in stride, I may be stumbling now (both physically and metaphorically) but I was still going, and I would keep on going.

Suddenly I had a thought that probably should have hit me a while ago; _What if I have super powers like Eric? _I jumped up from the bed, grabbed it by the baseboard, and heaved. Nothing, not an inch, and I tired just as quickly as normal too so no super stamina for me. Disappointed, I carefully wrapped my tail around a leg of my desk, I still needed to work on my dexterity with it. I pulled as hard as I could but my tail was just as wimpy as I was, if not more so. I was starting to get discouraged, I shuffled over to the wall and laid my palm on it, sliding it up and down. Nufin', no super strength, no wall crawling, and so far as I could tell no super senses either. _This is total crap!_ I thought, _I look like a freak but I can't do anything cool? How lame._ I sat back down and looked at my dad. His mouth was hanging open and he was snoring gently. _Well, looks like I get to stay with daddy, wont Eric be pleased._

I reached over with a clawed hand and shook my dad gently. He snorted as he jerked awake, blinking blearily at me for a second "Ellie? Ellie! Oh god, are you alright?"

"Mm-hm" I confirmed as my stomach let loose a loud gurgling negatory. I grimaced, putting a hand to my belly "hungry" I agreed miserably, "really, really hungry."

"of course!" he jumped up and started backing out the door, "I'll get you some food, but, I mean. Are you alright?"

I tried to smile reassuringly but it was a bit forced. "yeah dad, I'll be ok… after I've had some food!" I added urgently as my stomach practically roared.

"yes of course!" he said and left quickly left just as Eric poked his head around the door.

"Ellie? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine" I muttered. Suddenly hit by a hunger-induced headache, I stood and started hobbling after dad downstairs to the kitchen. Eric caught my shoulder as I passed and turned me to face him, his touch stung my tender skin and I flinched.

Looking me straight in the eye he said seriously "are you angry at me?"

Confused and hungry, I blinked. "…no, why would I be?" he looked away, distressed.

"Well, it was sort of my fault that this happened to you." He waited for me to respond, still not looking at me. I hadn't really thought about it like that, I shrugged.

"It was bound to happen eventually, I think it was just kinda' the straw that broke the camel's back, it could have been any old straw, yours wasn't like, special or anything." I blinked, surprised at my fabrication of an extended metaphor while I was so hungry. "Excuse me, I'm starving." I pushed past him and clung to the banister as I limped downstairs as quickly as I dared.

Turns out it was the afternoon of the next day. Dad put a stack of left over pizza slices from last night on my plate and I proceeded to devour them. After my seventh slice I got up and made myself a microwave lasagna, continuing to eat my eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh slices as I did so. I inhaled the two-person lasagna and a large bag of pretzels and finally started slowing down, finishing with four pieces of toast. My father and brother watched me with some astonishment, I could tell dad was wondering if I was going to eat so much from now on and calculating in his head weather or not he could afford to feed me. I patted my stomach, which, oddly, didn't look any fuller than it had before, and sighed, satisfied. My eyelids started to droop. "Can I go to bed now, I'm really tired"

Dad looked at Eric then back at me "yes, I guess so. We'll talk in the morning I guess."

_Oh joy, won't that be fun._ I thought, _jeze, what am I supposed to say "I'm totally OK with being a mutant freak"?_ I tried to smile reassuringly again as I got up to limp upstairs but it came out as a grimace like before.

Once I got upstairs I pulled my skirt off and threw it on the floor. I could almost imagine it looking at me forlornly, wondering what it had done wrong. I put my nightgown back on and curled up in bead. I started thinking, just like I knew I would. _Well, mom won't want me to go live with her anymore, she probably would prefer Eric to me now, he looks like less of a freak. God, it's so unfair, why don't I get any superpowers? So unfair… _I started to nod off, thinking about how I used to look. I'd never thought I was exactly overly attractive but I was always very comfortable with my body image. I wasn't supermodel thin but to me that's a good thing, a nice healthy weight. I had a nice face and a not bad complexion and that was more than good enough for me. I started dreaming, something random, I don't remember any more, but in the dream I looked like my old self, pre-mutantification and all that. I nearly jumped out of my skin (well, feathers really) when someone started shaking me.

"Ellie! Ellie! Elaine! Wake up!" It was Eric.

"Murff frrf furmmm" I mumbled…or something like that.

"Oh." A look of surprise appeared on his face. I glared at him.

"Whaaaat?!?" I groaned. He looked at me, still confused and a bit nervous.

"Well, it's just that. Well a moment ago. While you were sleeping. You looked like yourself! Like, no feathers, no claws, no tail! But… well, you look um, well, like a mutant again now. When you woke up you turned back…"

I stared at him, then I looked down at myself, no change, then I stared at him again.

You could say I was somewhat upset.

**Dun-Dun-Dunnnn! Mua Ha Ha! I Find Such Evil Places To End Chapters, No? Please Do Tell Me Just How Much That Bugs You By Leaving A Review!!! Oh The Fun You'll Have Abusing My Writing And Me! (-- Grammatically Correct!) Conversely, Leaving Comments, Good Or Bad, Lets Me Know That You Care At Least Somewhat And Gives Me The Will To Go On! I Live Off Of Constructive Criticism, Or Just Plain Old Criticism, So Get With The Criticizing And Leave Some Reviews!!!**


	4. Chapter 3: Revelation and Midnight Ride

Misunderstood

Chapter 3: In Which There Is A Revelation And A Midnight Ride

Disclaimer:** As Much As I'd Like To Deny It, The Multiverse And Everyone/Everything In It Belongs To Marvel, Not Me…Sob.**

**Woah, Sorry 'Bout The Delay For These Chapters To All Of You Who Actually Care! (Which Is Probably A Microscopic And Shrinking Minority Of You) Procrastination, Writer's Block, And Winter Break Did A Triple Tag Team On Me! That And I Wasn't To Terribly Motivated Since I Only Had TWO REVIEWS! So Anyway, To Make Up For The Wait I Give You THIS ONE REALLY SHORT MEDIOCRE CHAPTER!!! Oh, In Case Y'all Were Wondering When Any Actual Marvel Characters Were Going To Show Up, It's Going To Be A Few More Chapters…Four Or Five Maybe…Just Be Patient, It's An Important Virtue.**

I sat there gaping like a fish for several seconds before I managed to splutter out a few, not exactly choice, words "You're not kidding are you? This isn't some sort of twisted joke, right?" I immediately regretted what I had said when I saw the hurt and offended look my brother gave me.

"What? No! Why would I do that? I'm serious, you looked like yourself just a second ago!"

"Sorry" I mumbled. "I guess I was just kind of…shocked…So, what do you think it means?"

"What do I think what means?" I scowled and rolled my eyes, resisting the urge to slap my hand against my forehead.

"What do you think it means that I changed back!" I annunciated very clearly. "Maybe, maybe I can turn back whenever I wanted, if I could just figure out how."

"Well, try it then!"

"Uhh…" I looked at my hands wondering what I should do. The feathers on my arms looked pure black in the semidarkness. I clenched my hands into fists, my claws biting into my palms, and screwed my eyes tight shut. _Turn back, turn back, turn back, Turn Back! Turn Back!! TURN BACK!!! __**TURN BACK!!!!**_ I let out a high-pitched growl of frustration and went limp. "It's pointless; I don't know what I'm supposed to do!"

"So you don't feel anything?"

"Asides from annoyed? No." it was no use, I might as well have been trying to operate an electron microscope with only a vague notion of what one was.

"Maybe you can only do it when you're asleep."

"Oh yeah, that's useful! If a bunch of feathery purple mutant haters break into the house at night with the intent to kill me and I should happen to still be asleep by the time that they get to my room, I'll survive!"

Eric scowled and rolled his eyes. "Any way, I didn't come in here to be a creep and watch you sleep."

"Hey, yeah. Why are you in my room?" he smiled and passed me my motorcycle helmet.

"Didn't I promise you a ride?"

I took the helmet. "Yeah, like, yesterday."

"What?"

"You promised that you would take me yesterday. Besides, it's like the middle of the night."

"Do you want to go or not?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go! I'll wait for you in the garage." He left and I got out of bed quietly and hobbled over to my dresser, mourning all over again my lack of walking skills, lack of useable underwear, and loss of the ability to wear pants. Dejectedly I put on my lone swooshy skirt and my enormous leather flight jacket that I always wore when I rode. I went down to the garage and Eric just stared at me for a moment.

"Leather jacket and floor length skirt, that's an…interesting combination. Don't think the skirts gon'a work with the motorcycle though." I crossed my arms.

"It's this, or nothing." He waved his clawed hands in mock horror.

"Skirt it is then! Just be careful not to let it get caught in the wheels."

We rolled his bike outside and got on. I, as usual, sat behind him on his tail with my hands in his jacket pockets to help me grip. I stuffed the skirt in around my legs and underneath me to prevent a sudden and violent de-robing by motorcycle wheel in mid ride.

Lifting my visor, I asked "wont dad hear us start?"

"No, he's _out_, out" I knew what that meant. _Out_, out was our way of saying that dad was in an unrouseable drunken slumber, something he was in very rarely. I didn't blame him this time, the whole "me being a mutant thing" was pretty sudden, it had to have been a shock. He had done it when Eric changed too, after mom left, we just left him alone and took care of ourselves for a day.

Eric started his bike and with a roar we set off on one of our usual destinationless routes. The wind rushing past made every exposed feather buzz and vibrate, tingling pleasantly. I hugged Eric tightly and rested my helmeted head against his back, watching sleepily through half-lidded eyes as the scenery went rushing past. Dark fields and fences and the dim outline of trees against the blue black sky whipped past and what few things I could make out with any detail in the head light quickly rushed away into the darkness on either side of us. I always find riding equally exhilarating and relaxing. Being only inches away from becoming a mile long smear on the road is appropriately terrifying but the monotonous growling of the engine, the constant racing wind everywhere, the surroundings hypnotically racing by, and the vibration of the bike numbing you to the bone just has a wonderfully soporific affect on me. After an indeterminable amount of time passing fields and the occasional sleepy house we slowed down and pulled off onto the side of a road going through some trees. Eric stopped the bike and got off, slipping his tail out from under me. He turned to face me, taking off his helmet. I turned sidesaddle on the bike and took my helmet off too; I could feel that I had awful helmet hair (feathers?) as usual.

"I need to talk to you about something" I looked at him quizzically.

"And you had to take me way out here to do it?" he didn't say anything. "Okay, I'll bite. What?"

Finally he said "I'm leaving tonight." That was unexpected.

"Already? I thought you would stick around for a while!" I had hoped that he might be able to help me through the whole mutant thing, he had prior experience and, well, he was my big brother. I was disappointed to say the least.

"No, but… I want you to come with me." He didn't look at me as he said it. I didn't understand.

"What? You want me to come look at colleges with you? What are you going to do? Hide me in your suitcase? Let me live in your dorm's closet?"

"I'm not going to go look at more colleges, I haven't actually visited any yet." he said matter-o-factly. Now I really didn't understand.

"Well, then, what have you been doing all summer?"

he shrugged "I've been staying with this group, they're called the brotherhood of mutants, I'm supposed to go back to them tonight and I want you to come with me."

_***HERE IS THE PROER ENDING TO THIS CHAPTER!!! SORRY I DIDN'T HAVE IT EARLIER!!!***_

"I dun'know," I said evasively, I didn't like where this was going, "The Brotherhood? Sounds kind of like it's guys only or something…" my tail twitched nervously as I looked down and watched my toes curl in the grass, picking at pebbles and twigs.

"No, no, not at all!" he assured me, "there are girls! Um…actually, there's one who's a shape shifter! Maybe she could even help you out with changing back!" There was a long silence. I was sure he must be looking at me imploringly but I didn't want to look up.

"I don't know, I mean, do you even really know who these people are? I-I just don't know Eric. Why didn't you- I mean, what happened to college?" another long and even more deafening silence. I looked up tentatively, unsure of what he was thinking anymore. I was greeted with a cold stare, I wasn't expecting that but he ignored my look of shock.

"You seriously think that any college would accept me? Accept this?" His voice was as cold as his eyes and I flinched away as he whipped his tail forward violently and held up a clawed, scaly hand. "They're all filled with mutant haters, the whole damned world is! Speaking of which, I'll bet you anything you'll never hear from _mother dear_ ever again! As soon as she gets word of what's happened she'll drop you like a hot stone. Guess you'll be stuck with dad after all, and then what'll you do? I'm offering you the best future you can hope for now so tell me, are you coming with me or what?" he waited, glaring at me, hand extended for me to take or leave.

I just stood there, shock still written all over my face. My brother never got angry, _never_,but ever since he left, ever since he met these Brotherhood people… first his argument with dad, then his outburst at me that led to my break down, and now…this, this was the worst of all. I never could have imagined that look of spite on his face. Finally I snapped out of it and turned away, hiding the tears of distress that sprung to my eyes. I shook my head and put my helmet back on so that he wouldn't be able to see that I was crying. I waited by the bike; I could imagine him slowly lowering his hand, still glaring at me. He came over silently and got on the bike and I got on behind him, gingerly putting my hands back in his pockets and feeling extremely awkward. The whole ride back was awkward, I mean, you can't really avoid someone when you have to hang on to them for dear life. When we got home I quickly dismounted and started to head inside but I turned back when I didn't hear him kill the engine. He had dismounted and was pulling a duffel bag out of the bushes by our house. I watched as he got back on the bike, holding the duffel bag with his tail, and he glanced back at me for a moment before he rode back down the driveway and out of sight.

**DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN!!! ****Note The Omission Of ****"EVIL" From The Usual "The Brotherhood Of EVIL Mutants" Guess They Had A Talk With Their PR Guy About The Impression That May Leave On Unwitting Victims-I Mean Hopeful Prospects!!! UGH, Writing Is So Freaking Hard Right Now, I've Had Nearly This Whole "Chapter" (It Was Going To Be Way Longer But I Folded Under The Pressure Of The Whole HUGE Time Gap Between Publishes) Was Written Months And Months And MONTHS Ago But Those Last Few Lines Have Just Been Eluding Me I Guess ^^; SORRY AGAIN!!!**

**Also, I've Started Working On Another Epic X-Men FF With GAMBIT!!! 3 COMING SOON, I Swear!**


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